


hyphen

by buckgaybarnes



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mistaken for Being in a Relationship, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Romantic Comedy Logic, Semi-Slow Burn, Sharing a Bed, appearances by tendo and mako and raleigh, corny as hell, the Post-World Saving Lecture Tour, tropes upon tropes upon tropes, uprising don't interact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 17:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15320136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: It’s a problem to work through, and Hermann’s never slept well with insufficiently examined data on his mind. Question: why pretend in the public eye to be married to Newton? Answer: to leverage open university positions to their mutual advantage. Question: what does that mutual advantage entail? Answer: not being separated from Newton. Question: why is it so important he not be separated from Newton?(OR: After a minor misunderstanding leads people to believe Newt and Hermann are married, Newt and Hermann decide to play along. It all goes swimmingly—that is, until Hermann realizes he enjoys the charade a bit more than he should.)





	hyphen

**Author's Note:**

> well. i was bound to write fake married eventually. some semi-important notes before we begin:
> 
> 1) newt and hermann PROBABLY wouldn't settle in america after the war ends tbh, but since newt's from boston and i'm at least mildly familiar with the geography there i threw them there anyway
> 
> 2) i was going to actually say the university they teach at but then i got too caught up in comparing websites and stats and staffing and realized "hey, literally NO ONE cares", so you're welcome to fill in one of your choice
> 
> 3) i literally have no clue if being married has an effect on job offers in higher education but pretend in 2026 it does 
> 
> 4) i recognize they have families that prob would be like "hey, uh, what the fuck" too, but i have noooo clue how i headcanon all that and i play fast and loose with canon these days since uprising anyway, so

In retrospect, it should’ve been obvious that something was amiss the second time a university at which Newton and Hermann were scheduled to make an appearance stuck them in a one-bed hotel room under the ominously hyphenated _Geiszler-Gottlieb_. As it was, the strain of the whole tour was too much—too exhausting, too demanding, too time-consuming—for either of them to do little else but grumble about it to each other, make empty threats of bringing it to the attention of reception or the university itself, and then ultimately chalk the whole thing up to insufficient planning and just share the damn bed. So it _wasn’t_ obvious. Not until—well—

“Am I high,” Newton says, “or did that guy just call us _Doctors Geiszler-Gottlieb_? As in, plural-hyphen?”

Hermann _very_ delicately slams his cane down on Newton’s foot, and Newton yelps in surprise; the _guy_ Newton is referring to is the dean of the university, who had barely been out of earshot when Newton started running his mouth. Nevertheless, Newton isn’t wrong. There had certainly been a distressing amount of plurals and the ever-ominous hyphens in the dean’s greetings to them, as warm as they were. Something clicks in Hermann’s mind, then: the joint hotel rooms (one of which was a honeymoon suite), the constant stream of _congratulations_ that held more than just the obvious meaning when they’d mingle with university personnel and lecture attendees after these events, the bottle of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries the last university paid to be sent up to their room the one night... “Newton,” Hermann says slowly, “you don’t suppose…”

They’re much more in-sync, these days, after their drift, always thinking along the same lines. Newton’s eyes widen imperceptibly and he chokes on his complimentary punch as comprehension dawns on him at the same time. “No way, dude,” he splutters. “No _fucking_ way. They don’t—they can’t—”

“I told you,” Hermann hisses, because it’s all _Newton’s_ fault, of course, why should it be anyone else’s, he’s the one who insisted they _name_ this little international tour, “to just use a _bloody_ ampersand. The hyphen carries connotations. Implications! Why didn’t you just _listen_ to me?”

“The hyphen sounded better!” Newton exclaims. “It was smoother! The Geiszler _and_ Gottlieb lecture tour is a mouthful—”

“It didn’t need a name in the first place,” Hermann says, “and now we’ve— _conned_ everyone into thinking we’re—” He breaks off, and he and Newton stare at each other. Hermann can feel his face heating up, because, strictly speaking, from an outsider’s perspective, it _is_ a logical assumption for one to make. He and Newton advertised themselves as a duo for the tour from the beginning, and—accidentally or not—with hyphenated last names. They co-authored the paper on their wartime research that ultimately led to their joint drift. They moved in together for the short time following the closure of the Breach before the tour started, which is public knowledge, at this point, after the sheer numbers of interviews they’ve given. They go out to meals together and get coffee together. They both—publicly—lack a romantic partner.

Well. Not anymore, it seems.

 

“We have to say _something_ ,” Newton says when they get back to their hotel. He’s started packing already to avoid waking up early the next morning to do it then. (Three universities down, two more to go.) “We can’t just let everyone think we’re—”

_Married_ hangs in the air, unspoken. Neither of them have been able to say it aloud yet. As if doing so will make it real. “No,” Hermann muses, lying pensively on the bed, his hands clasped together in his lap. “No, we certainly can’t. It’s dishonest.” He watches Newton shove clothing at random into their matching suitcases, not caring if it all gets jumbled together—oh, God, they have _matching suitcases_. Hermann chokes down a hysterical laugh. When did that happen? No wonder everyone’s jumping to conclusions.

As Hermann stews silently in his own miniature crisis, Newton flops down on the bedspread next to him. He seems to be having a crisis of his own. “Yep. Absolutely,” he finally says. “Even if it means we get a discount on the hotel rooms.”

“Yes,” Hermann agrees. The discounted hotel rooms _are_ very nice, even if the universities are covering half the cost of each night anyway.

“And free champagne,” Newton continues. “Free dessert. Remember that?” Hermann hums in acknowledgment. Newton rolls on his side to face Hermann and traces the pattern of the bedspread with the tip of his finger. “And joint university position offers.”

“Yes,” Hermann agrees, then, “Oh?”

“Joint university position offers,” Newton repeats, feigning innocence. Hermann furrows his brow. “I’m guessing you didn’t check your email?”

Hermann shakes his head. Newton pulls his phone out of his pocket with a flourish and flashes the screen at him. Newton’s pulled up an email from his alma mater and former place of employment, MIT. “Dear Dr. Newton Geiszler-Gottlieb,” Newton begins, and Hermann snatches it away to read for himself. Newton hadn’t been lying. The email is offering both him and Hermann full-time positions, starting the coming fall, and it takes special care to inform them that while they don’t strictly _need_ any additions to their physics department, they’d be happy to make an exception for Hermann—or, as the email referred to him by, _your husband_. “There are three more like that,” Newton says casually. "You probably got some too,” and sure enough, when Hermann pulls out his own phone and scrolls through his email inbox, it’s more of the same. “All from different places. Some want biology and not physics, some want physics but not biology, and all are _totally_ willing to make an exception on behalf of our,” Newton throws up aggressive air-quotes “ _marriage_. Who knew academia is made up of a bunch softies, huh?”

“ _Oh_ ,” Hermann repeats.

He and Newton haven’t talked extensively about their future together, beyond the very basic mutual admittance of _I don’t entirely hate you or being in your company._ Moving in together was one thing: it was temporary, and they were both recently fresh out of a stable salary but conjoined they could easily cover rent, and—the post-drift effects were _difficult,_  after all, confusing dreams and occasional nightmares of the Anteverse, and close proximity to each other made it better. More manageable. And, well, Hermann’s become fond of Newton. _Very_ fond. It’s only natural, after years and years of sharing a lab and then sharing _minds,_ that they’d have difficulty suddenly separating from each other. They _did_ talk a few times about finding a position at the same university, but most places they were interested in were only hiring in one department or the other.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Newton says.

“Well,” Hermann says, and sets his phone down, slides his reading glasses off and folds them gently. “This does certainly change things, doesn’t it?”

“It’s dishonest, Hermann,” Newton reminds him. “We’d be living a lie.”

“True,” Hermann says airily, feeling a bit too Newtonian at the moment, “ _but_ …” and Newton mirrors the grin spreading across his face.

* * *

The complex motives involved in Hermann’s decision to suggest they play along with the charade are far more than he himself wishes to delve into, but he does anyway that very night while Newton snores in a little curled up ball next to him. It’s a problem to work through, after all, and Hermann’s never slept well with insufficiently examined data on his mind. Question: why pretend in the public eye to be married to Newton? Answer: to leverage open university positions to their mutual advantage. Question: what does that mutual advantage entail? Answer: not being separated from Newton. Question: why is it so important he not be separated from Newton?

Newton rolls over in his sleep so his back is no longer facing Hermann. With his glasses off, his cheek red and creased from where it’d been pressed against his pillow, and his mouth half-open as he breathes deeply, Newton is endearing. Cute, really. Something warm blossoms in Hermann’s chest. (Why is it so important he not be separated from Newton? Answer: something Hermann fears to put a name to.)

* * *

There’s a bit of a wait between when they check out of their London hotel and when their flight leaves, so—after they check their bags—they take up residence in one of Heathrow’s over-crowded coffee shops and discuss their “con” (as Newton insists on calling it) over watery tea. Newton has started taking his tea like Hermann does, Hermann notices (a little bit of milk), just as Hermann’s started taking his coffee like Newton does (a lot of sugar). “Someone’s bound to ask us how it happened eventually,” Hermann points out. “Especially once tabloids get ahold of us.”

They both wince; neither of them have forgotten the long weeks of speculation following Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket being spotted vacationing together. “Okay,” Newton says, leaning back in his chair, “let’s say that, after we closed the Breach, I was so _swept up_ in _love_ that I proposed to you on the spot and we got hitched a week later.”

“Oh?” Hermann says. He holds up his left hand. “Without rings?”

“It was a marriage of passion,” Newton says, and thumps his fist to his fist. “It was heat of the moment and it was _beautiful_. Our love is stronger than rings, Hermann.”

Hermann hums, skeptical, but he can’t help but smile. “I certainly hope you said something a tad more romantic than that to win me over, Dr. Geiszler.”

“That’s Dr. Geiszler-Gottlieb to you,” Newton says with a wink, and knocks back the rest of his tea; Hermann’s grateful for it, because it means Newton can’t see the way Hermann swallows reflexively from a sudden, inexplicable rush of—something over the last name. Newton stands up and grabs his jacket from the back of his chair. He nods towards the board. “Our gate’s up, c’mon.”

Newton has always been a very tactile person—this knowledge is nothing new in the slightest—but now every occasion of Newton’s touch seems to be searing itself permanently into Hermann’s brain: the way Newton helps Hermann to his feet and hands him his cane, links their arms together, curls his fingers around Hermann’s elbow as he leads them to the right gate. “Have you looked over any more of the offers?” Newton asks him once they board the plane and find their seats.

“You mean the one in Germany?” Hermann says. Hermann doesn’t quite fancy the prospect of living in Berlin, but Newton seems enthusiastic enough about it.

Newton nods. “And the _three_ in Boston,” he says, and grins. “I guess they really want me back home.” The plane begins its noisy ascent, and the grin slides off Newton’s face. Hermann quickly covers Newton’s hand—God knows how many plane rides they’ve been on at this point, together or otherwise, and the man still hates flying—and _wills_ a bit of calm at him. He knows that’s not how residual drift energy works (assuming they even _have_ any) but it seems to do the trick each time. Maybe it’s just the grounding touch of skin-on-skin. “Thanks,” Newton says, quiet enough that Hermann can barely hear him over the engine, and smiles.

* * *

They’re not precisely celebrities, no matter what Newton insists, nowhere near the scale of Mako and Becket, but their involvement in closing the Breach and subsequent interviews with a few magazines (mostly of the popular science variety) have made them at least _somewhat_ notable figures, semi-household names. Even a year after the closure of the Breach, they still have heads turn in their direction when they say their names, still have the occasional journalist tail them for photographs or more interviews. So Newton’s suggestion is reasonable. It cover all their bases. Sells the lie even more.

“Would you like any more wine, Dr. Geiszler?” the waiter says.

“Dr. Geiszler- _Gottlieb,_ ” Newton cuts in smoothly, giving a bright, charming smile. “Yeah, that’d be awesome.”

The waiter nods and walks off. Hermann hides his face behind his dessert menu, mostly out of embarrassment. “That wine is _atrociously_ expensive, Newton,” he hisses. Not that it really matters to him; Newton made quite a show of handing over his credit card to their waiter at the beginning of dinner and declaring that he was paying for himself and his _husband_. End of lecture tour treat, Newton claimed—their last night before they fly back to the U.S. to settle in Boston and back in academia.

Newton reaches across the table and twines their fingers together, and the dessert menu slips from Hermann’s hands. He can’t place the look Newton is giving him. “We have plenty of money coming in, dude,” Newton says dismissively, then lowers his voice, and—to Hermann’s further shock—Hermann feels Newton brush his ankle against his. “Besides. If you _were_ my husband I’d take you out to fancy dinners all the time. I’m just giving you the full experience.”

“Ah,” Hermann says, flush rising up his neck. “Oh.” He’s spared when their waiter comes back and refills their wine glasses, and Newton retracts his foot to his side of the table.

“We’ll share a dessert,” Newton tells the waiter, odd expression still on his face.

* * *

They have a good bit of time before their first semester teaching again starts up, and a decent bit before they have to start pulling syllabuses together, but unfortunately, any and all time that could’ve been spent on vacationing or even just simply unwinding from practically a year of lecturing goes directly into finding a new place of residence. Preferably finding one fast; the hotel they’ve taken up residence in for the time being is slowly and methodically eating away at Hermann’s savings account.

Their real estate agent is a nice woman, thrilled to meet the both of them and quote-unquote determined to find a place that suits their needs, but that doesn’t make up for the entire truthfully miserable experience.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Newton groans as their agent walks ahead to unlock the door of the fourth place they’ve looked at today, and scuffs at the ground with the toe of his boot, “I forgot how much apartment hunting _sucks_.”

Hermann sighs and nods. After years upon years in the Hong Kong Shatterdome and years in the Jaeger Academy before that, it’s been a decent decade since either of them have had to worry about living situations—even their temporary flat in Hong Kong hadn’t involved this much of a hassle, as the PPDC practically found and funded it themselves (some sort of thank you for their service combined with their need to clear out the old base as soon as possible). Hermann doesn’t miss the war, of course not, but he _does_ miss the simplicity of assigned quarters and not having to worry about rent, or leases, or—worse—small talk with neighbors.

“It’s close to the university, like you wanted. Practically walking distance,” the agent says as she leads them inside. 

The apartment is old and decently-sized, with large windows, a spacious living room (even with a little fireplace), a kitchen big enough to hold a table for at least four, should they need it. It’s nice. It suits their needs. A quick glance at Newton means they’re thinking the same thing: obviously, there must be a catch. “The only problem…” the agent begins, and pushes open the two doors in the attached hallway. A master bath, and— “There’s only one bedroom, and I know that you said you wanted a spare, but perhaps you'd be willing to reconsider.”

Ah. Of course. “If you’ll excuse us,” Hermann says politely, “my—husband and I need to discuss in private.” The agent nods, smiles politely, and steps out.

“I think we should take it,” Newton says the moment she’s gone.

Hermann was afraid of that. “One bedroom,” he says.

“I _know_ ,” Newton says. “But it’s so close to everything. And cheap. And think about it,” he shoots a look at the foyer, where the agent is fiddling about on her phone, leans in close, “how weird would it look if people visit and we have two _very obviously_ separate bedrooms?”

“Who on earth are these hypothetical people so caught up in our private affairs?”

“Colleagues. _Friends_ ” Newton says insistently. “Believe it or not, Hermann, we’re probably going to have to _socialize_ at work.”

“There’s only enough room for one bed,” Hermann points out, verging on desperate. They might manage to make two twin beds fit, but there would be very little space to move around. “We’d have to…”

“I don’t mind,” Newton says, jaw set in the same way it always is when they argue. Almost as if it’s a challenge.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Hermann doesn’t mind either. He _liked_ sharing a bed with Newton in all those months on tour. He liked listening to Newton talk himself to sleep every night, liked drifting off to the sound of Newton’s steady breathing and quiet snores, liked waking up and seeing Newton stirring beside him with messy hair and bleary eyes. (Question: why is it so important he not be separated from Newton?) Hermann straightens his shoulders, looks Newton square in the eyes. “Alright,” he says. “Fine. If you’re quite sure.”

“We’ll take it,” Newton calls to the agent immediately.

 

It takes a few weeks for the PPDC to ship them the remainder of their belongings, and by that point they’ve settled comfortably into their new apartment. Aside from a forgotten sweater and half a dozen books, it’s entirely stuff of Newton’s they send: a few DVD boxsets ( _Star Trek, The X-Files, Doctor Who_ ), some rolled up posters, his keyboard _and_ guitar, three kaiju action figures, a few random odds and ends that he’d left behind in the lab. Newton’s _ecstatic_ about getting his guitar back and insists on serenading Hermann with it once he unboxes it, regardless of the Chinese takeaway currently cooling to room temperature on their new coffee table.

“I’ve had this thing for two _decades_ , dude,” Newton says, and settles in cross-legged on the carpet to get to work tuning it. Hermann believes it: the stickers it’s decorated with are faded and peeling, and the strap is fairly worn. He remembers Newton used to play it in the lab, sometimes, when work was slow, and Hermann would put up a token fight but—truthfully—quite enjoy listening to him. (Hermann remembers the YouTube clips Newton would email of his old band back when they still wrote to each other, too, and how Hermann used to replay them over and over.)

Evidently satisfied with how it sounds, Newton pulls the guitar strap on over his head, adjusts it, and grins at Hermann. Hermann sets down his carton of vegetable dumplings cautiously. “I wrote a song for you once,” Newton says. “Back when we—uh, you know.” Neither of them talk about their penpal days if they can help it. When they first reunited in Hong Kong after three years of deliberately ignoring each other, it was too recent, too much too soon to even consider bringing up, and it set the groundwork for their (odd, messy) relationship that followed.

“Did you really?” Hermann says, feeling both awkward and pleased.

“Yeah.” Newton strums a chord. “Hermann,” he begins, eye closed, all comic melodrama, “this one goes out to _you_.” The melody he plays is soft, and nice, and slow. Not what Hermann was expecting at all (Newton’s band had been of the aggressive punk variety, after all). He loves it. “It had lyrics, too,” Newton explains after he strums the last few chords, then slips the strap off and sets his guitar against one of their armchairs. “But…” He trails off cryptically. Hermann doesn’t push him to continue. Those days are long behind them, now. Nearly a decade and a half. He thinks he got the gist of it in the drift, anyway, the high regard Newton once held for him, the intense, burning hint of _something_ between them that was unceremoniously extinguished when they met face-to-face.

When Newton gets bored of unpacking his boxes and waltzing down memory lane (which is quite quickly), he squeezes next to Hermann on the couch and steals the dumplings right out from under Hermann’s nose. Hermann retaliates by eating Newton’s fortune cookie, to which _Newton_ retaliates by switching on the television and flipping to some inane paranormal investigation show, and then shoving the remote control underneath his cushion where Hermann can’t reach.

Newton rests his head on Hermann’s shoulder when he starts to doze off eventually, lit up blue by the television screen, and an overwhelming sensation of fondness fills Hermann as he watches him. Is this what it would be like if they were actually married? Would Newton play the guitar for him all the time? Steal his food? _Cuddle_ with him? Hermann slides Newton’s glasses off his face and sets them on the coffee sable, then slips an arm about his shoulders. Newton stirs. He blinks up sleepily at Hermann, then smiles just as sleepily, and Hermann realizes he has his answer to the question that’s been haunting him for weeks.

 

As Newton showers the next morning after a night spent sleeping on the couch, Hermann mulls his revelation over as he brews a pot of coffee. It was bound to happen eventually, really, as much as Hermann is loathe to admit. Newton is Hermann’s oldest and longest-standing relationship, his most _important_ relationship, his best friend, the person he trusts implicitly (for _some_ reason). And—now that he’s letting himself consider his former lab partner in more than just a platonic light—Hermann will admit Newton is _attractive_. Brash, and messy, and obnoxious, but _attractive_. He has nice eyes. Nice hair. His tattoos aren’t all bad to look at, and he’s pleasingly soft around the middle. Brilliant, too, of course. Brave. Charming, when he wants to be.

Hermann’s so caught up in mentally listing every single one of Newton’s good qualities that when his phone starts buzzing, he doesn’t even register the caller ID before he answers it. “Hello?” he says, faintly, as he considers the shape of Newton’s nose.

“ _When the_ hell,” Tendo says, “ _were you going to tell me_?”

For one wild, confusing moment, Hermann has no idea what Tendo’s talking about. And then he groans. “Oh, dear,” he says. “Has word gotten out, then?”

“ _Uh, it sure fucking has. It’s in about three different magazines._ ” The cellular reception isn’t superb—as far as Hermann knows, Tendo’s still in Hong Kong—but Hermann can hear the sound of rustling pages on the other end. “ _Some cute pictures, too, I’ll give you that, but very, very begrudgingly. Assholes. You didn’t even let me throw you a bachelor party!_ ”

Hermann chews on his lip nervously, wondering how he’s going to break the news that it’s all for show. A fake. “Ah. Listen—”

“ _Mako’s pissed, too, she can’t believe you didn’t invite her—_ ”

“Tendo—”

“— _both really happy for you two, though._ ”

Hermann freezes, his confession on the tip of his tongue. “You are?”

Tendo scoffs. “ _Of course we are,_ ” he says. “ _It was about time you and Newt hooked up. I just didn’t expect it to be like_ that.” The admission sends Hermann reeling, and he almost misses the next bit. “ _Heard you’re in Boston now. When can we visit_?”

Tendo is a friend, and Mako is a friend, and a lie of omission is still a lie. (But it’s not hurting anyone, is it? And besides—Hermann finds it’s a lie he doesn’t mind keeping alive.) “Our first semester is about to begin, so I imagine we’ll be fairly booked up for the near future,” Hermann says, “but we’ll have a week off at the end of November if you’d like to come then.”

“ _I’ll tell Mako when she and Raleigh get back from wherever the hell they are. She’ll be stoked. You know—"_ and Tendo seems to forget that Newton and Hermann evidently eloped without telling anyone just like that, immediately launching into an impassioned speech against the PPDC for making him do little more than paperwork for a year while Mako and Becket relax on beaches and Newton and Hermann settle back into their pre-war careers. By the time he finishes and Hermann ends the call with promises to relay the details of his and Newton’s _elopement_ in November, the coffee’s ready and Newton’s wandering into the kitchen in his boxers and an old t-shirt with a towel swung around his neck.

“Who was that?” he says, fixing himself coffee in Hermann’s mug.

“Tendo,” Hermann says. “He heard about our ‘marriage’.” He doesn’t realize he’s adopted the air-quotes Newton always uses to refer to their situation until Newton looks amused. More drift-jumbled quirks, perhaps.

“What did you tell him?” Newton leans against the kitchen counter, the same odd look on his face from the restaurant all those nights ago. Hermann turns, deliberately busies himself with making toast. “The truth?”

“Not...exactly,” Hermann admits. “I didn’t bother to correct him, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good,” Newton says, and snorts, and the odd tension is gone. “If he found out, _everyone_ would find out. Remember when he told everyone about that time in the lab—”

 

Sharing the bed is a uniquely torturous experience once Hermann comes to terms with the fact that he may, quite possibly, not be opposed to being married to Newton for real. Every touch, every time Newton shifts in his sleep and presses up against him, every time Newton forgoes a t-shirt and Hermann gets an eyeful of his bare chest, Hermann’s left panicking and feeling guilty. And, to a lesser extent, _anxious_. They’re both moderately young men in moderately good health, after all, with libidos and sex drives that—well—self-stimulation can only curb for _so_ long; surely Newton will want to bring someone home one night? Will Hermann be delegated to the sofa while Newton monopolizes the bed? Newton has time to date, now—will he want to? Will Hermann have to watch from afar as Newton falls in love with someone else for real? By God, they never even discussed how long they’d keep the charade _going._  Hermann might have to live in agony for—

“What’s got your panties in a knot, man?” Newton says. Hermann blinks, stares at the pencil in his hand, and realizes he’s been staring at the same crossword puzzle clue for twenty minutes. Newton’s lying on his side and looking at him expectantly. Tonight’s one of the nights he’s gone shirtless, and the bedspread falls low enough to expose the upper part of his chest: sparse hair, the beginning of a stylized kaiju.

“Nothing,” Hermann says quickly. “Just—stumped on the puzzle, is all.” He folds the newspaper up and sets it down on the nightstand, then his reading glasses down on top of it, then switches off the lamp and settles in under the bedspread as well.

Newton flings an arm over Hermann’s chest almost immediately. “‘night, Dr. Geiszler-Gottlieb,” he yawns, and Hermann hopes he doesn’t notice the way Hermann’s heart races.

 

Newton starts playing the guitar for him regularly, sometimes while Hermann cooks, sometimes while Hermann knits. One night, as they finalize their syllabuses (with no small amount of critiques of the other’s reading list—“They’re going to hate you if you make that required,” Newton has pointed out at least three times) and Newton massages his leg (it was cramping up and aching Hermann a bit more than usual and Newton noticed and insisted, Hermann is _not_ taking advantage), Newton nods towards their yet-to-be-used fireplace. “Winter’s going to be fucking _cold_ here,” he says, “so I hope you’re ready for me to cuddle the shit out of you in front of that.”

“I look forward to it,” Hermann says, the warm feeling back in his chest.

“Assuming the chimney actually works,” Newton continues, “and we won’t just, like, suffocate ourselves or set the place on fire or something. That wouldn’t be very romantic.”

“Romantic?” Hermann says quickly.

“Yeah. Uh.” Newton’s fingers still on his calf. “In the hypothetical married couple sense.”

“Yes,” Hermann agrees, refusing to look up from his his syllabus. “Hypothetical. Of course.”

 

They don’t end up sharing an office on campus (not that Hermann expected them to) which means that Hermann has a respite from his frankly _pathetic_ pining over Newton, except that Hermann spends the entirety of his time apart from Newton pining over Newton _anyway._  His heart leaps every time his phone vibrates with a text from Newton, he nearly swoons over every email Newton sends. It’s not as if they spend all that much time apart in the first place on campus, anyway: they’ve started taking all of their lunch breaks together in Hermann’s office.

“It’s what couples do,” Newton explained the first time he barged in, brown paper bag of sandwiches in hand, and sat down directly on Hermann’s desk. “It’d be suspicious if we didn’t.” (Hermann, privately, doesn’t think their colleagues care too much about where they take lunch, but Newton wasn’t having it.)

“How’s your class going?” Newton asks him two weeks into the fall semester. Hermann’s started out small—only one introductory-level physics course—but if all goes according to plan, and Hermann’s undergrads don’t drive him mad first, he’ll be conducting a course on Breach physics in the spring. Newton’s in the same situation: one introductory-level biology now, and then “the fun shit” (k-biology) later on. He interrupts before Hermann can answer. “Mine’s fine, I guess,” he says with a shrug. He’s sitting on the edge of Hermann’s desk again, despite the fact that there’s a perfectly good armchair just on the other side of it. “Half the kids are just taking it as a gen-ed so they don’t really give a shit about any of it, which kind of sucks, to be honest, I put _so much effort_ into those PowerPoints, Hermann, you’d be so proud, not a single pun on any of them—”

To Hermann’s complete bewilderment, Newton suddenly cuts off with a sharp glance at the door. “What—?” he begins, and then Newton scoots over so he’s directly in front of Hermann, leans in close, so close their foreheads are touching, their noses brushing, and Hermann thinks his brain may be short-circuiting, “ _what_?” he croaks out, and Newton shushes him.

Newton stays like that for another minute, and then—as suddenly as he leaned in—he sags, all tension from his shoulders gone. “Sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sit back up, “there was someone outside.”

The glass of Hermann’s office door is cloudy by design, but he can still discern the general look of people through it, and vice-versa, albeit it with details blurred; no doubt whoever looked inside assumed he and Newton were— “ _Why_?” he says. “Now everyone—"

“Exactly,” Newton says, quiet, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips and Hermann’s eyes follow it automatically. “Just—staying in character. If we were married, I’d make out with you in your office _all_ the time. You wouldn’t be able to catch a break from me, Hermann.”

Their lips are an inch apart from each other; Hermann can feel Newton’s breath ghosting across his face. “Is that so?” he murmurs, and Newton _still_ doesn’t move away—

There’s a knock at the door. Newton jumps, nearly falls off the desk, and Hermann curses under his breath. “Yes?” he calls, and it swings open to reveal one of the other physics professors. Hermann’s unsure of her name, but her hands are in her pockets and she’s smiling a bit nervously.

“Hi, Dr. Gottlieb—” she begins.

“Geiszler-Gottlieb,” Newton and Hermann correct in unison.

“Oh. Right. Of course. Sorry,” she says, and goes a bit pink. “I saw—nevermind.”

“Is there something you need?” Hermann says, polite but pointed.

“We’re having a department party next week,” she says in a rush. “A bit of a _welcome_ party for you. You can come too, of course, spouses are also invited,” she adds, and nods at Newton.

Hermann hates parties almost as much as he hates small talk, and he can’t see this one going well for them—not with the assured infinite probing questions about their fabricated love life. “Thank you for the invitation,” he says, “but—”

“ _But_ we’ll be happy to come,” Newton interrupts with a broad smile. “We’re free every night. Please excuse my husband, he’s just antisocial.”

“ _Newton_ ,” Hermann hisses, but Newton just keeps smiling and ignores him, and the professor nods slowly.

“Great,” she says, and laughs a bit awkwardly. “We’ll be sending around an email with the official invitation and all the details tonight, so keep an eye out.”

“It’s a _party_ ,” Newton says when Hermann rounds on him with a scowl once the woman leaves. Newton throws his hands up defensively. “It’ll be _fun_ , Hermann, come on.”

It’ll be a nightmare, is what: people wanting to know how they met, prying into their personal lives, Hermann and Newton being forced to keep up the charade all night long—but Newton’s already moved on to something new. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says, and he’s avoiding Hermann’s eyes, picking at a little hole on his corduroys, “uh, would you want to go out this Friday? For like, a movie? And dinner? Just—a little date night thing, you know, to keep the marriage healthy?”

“We’re _not_ _married_ , Newton,” Hermann sighs (as much as he hates the reminder).

“I know,” Newton says, “but it’s what we’d do if we were, isn’t it?”

Hermann knows how it’ll play out: Newton will insist on holding his hand throughout the movie (for show), insist on calling Hermann his husband to anyone who asks (for show), insist on paying for everything and pulling Hermann’s chair out and flirting across the dinner table for _show_ , and Hermann doesn’t have it in him to be that close to what he wants and have it all be a lie. “Not this Friday,” he says, as kindly as he can manage, and wracks his brain for an excuse, “I’m sorry. I’ll have—reports to grade.”

“Reports,” Newton repeats. “Right.” He hops down off the desk and tosses the crusts of his sandwich in Hermann’s wastebin. “I should go back to my office, I guess. I have a student coming in soon.” He walks out and clicks Hermann’s office door behind him without another word.

 

The next few days see a strange tenseness emerge between them. Newton doesn’t sit close to him on the sofa anymore, doesn’t curl up to him in their bed; their shared lunches are quiet, uneventful, and they talk of little more than their classes or the amount of work they have to do; Newton doesn’t make a point of going to Starbucks over his self-proclaimed vastly preferred Dunkin’ Donuts just to give his name to baristas as _Dr. Geiszler-Gottlieb_ and wink at Hermann when the order is called, or introduce Hermann to strangers as _my husband_ , or do crosswords with Hermann, or fix Hermann tea—unasked—every night, or play him music, or walk arm-and-arm with him to the university every morning, and Hermann knows, somehow, that it’s his own fault. Newton must’ve caught on, somehow, to Hermann’s budding feelings for him. Did he look at Newton too much? Linger too long over his clever fingers working his guitar strings or his smile when Hermann made him laugh? Clung too tight in bed one night? Perhaps he saw how badly Hermann wanted to kiss him back in his office. Perhaps Newton’s just _tired_ of the charade. Perhaps he wants to have a real relationship with someone and Hermann’s holding him back. Whatever the tipping point may have been: Hermann _misses_ him.

“We have that party after work today,” Newton says the morning a week after the incident in Hermann’s office. He peeks into view around the doorframe of the open bathroom door, wearing one of Hermann’s t-shirts and sporting a bedhead Hermann wants desperately to run his fingers through.

“Mm,” Hermann says through a mouthful of toothpaste, and spits into the sink.

“We don’t have to go,” Newton says after a beat. “It was a dick move of me to accept like that. It’s cool if you don’t want—”

“No,” Hermann says. He rinses off his toothbrush and sticks it back in the little cup by the sink. “No, we said we would, so we will.”

“Fine,” Newton says, and that’s that, Hermann supposes. The party it is. A whole night of playing happy couple with Newton, when Newton can’t even bear to hold a normal conversation with him anymore. “Are you done yet? I need to take a shower.”

 

At parties they attended in the Shatterdome in the past, Newton and Hermann would typically lurk together in some darkened corner and drink and argue the night away and mostly ignore the other attendees. Unfortunately, Newton separates from him the second they walk through the door of the physics department lounge and disappears somewhere near the snack table, leaving Hermann to the mercy of his new co-workers on his own. They’re all very nice people, too, which makes it even worse—Hermann can’t even feel justified in his resentment of their well-meaning questions about the war, and what Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket are like in the flesh, and his and Newton’s work in the Shatterdome, and their (by now) highly-publicized drift with the kaiju brain. And, of course: their marriage.

“Newton—ah—Newton proposed to me that very night,” Hermann stammers, thinking back on the conversation he and Newton shared in the coffee shop in Heathrow (“It was a marriage of _passion_ ,” Newton declared). “And—”

“And _basically_ , we eloped,” Newton cuts in with an exaggerated laugh, sidling up to the group and putting an arm around Hermann’s waist in one smooth, fluid motion. He smiles at Hermann; Hermann returns it, relieved. “We didn’t even wait to get rings or anything.”

“How sweet,” someone says.

“Yes,” Hermann says, enjoying the fantasy: Newton, iris red, nose bloody, glasses shattered and jacket torn, dipping Hermann into a kiss in the middle of Loccent and declaring his love and begging Hermann to run away with him, Hermann accepting enthusiastically. “Yes, it was.”

“How long have you been together, then?” someone else says, eyeing them curiously. Hermann doesn’t blame him; seeing as there hadn’t been one to discuss, none of the initial post-war interviews Newton and Hermann gave reference their marriage or romantic relationship in the slightest. Which can be chalked up to wanting privacy, of course, but he and Newton still need a response for _now_ , a scenario which they never bothered discussing.

Newton squeezes his waist. Perhaps he can feel Hermann panicking. Sense it through the last tangled threads of their drift. “To be honest,” Newton says, suddenly serious, “not long at all. But I’ve loved Hermann for as long as I’ve known him and I really can’t imagine life without him, so I didn’t have to think about it too much.” He says it matter-of-factly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it doesn’t make Hermann’s throat clench tight and his palm sweaty and clammy on the head of his cane and can't feel Newton’s fingers heavy at his hip.

Hermann doesn’t remember what he says after that. He thinks he might agree with Newton.

 

That night, Hermann waits to shut the bedroom light off until Newton finishes brushing his teeth and pads into the bedroom wearing nothing but boxers and another one of Hermann’s old Oxford University t-shirts. He sets his glasses on the nightstand and worms his way under the covers next to Hermann, not touching, no arm around his waist like he used to, and they say nothing to each other, watch the shadows cast by the street lamps outside shift and twist on the ceiling.

Hermann chews on his bottom lip. He needs to know. “Newton…” he begins finally, quiet.

He feels the tug of the bedsheets as Newton turns on his side next to him, and watches from the corner of his eye as Newton props himself up on his elbow. “Yeah?”

Hermann turns over, too. Newton looks expectant. Almost eager. “Did you mean it? What you said?”

“From your very first letter,” Newton says, as matter-of-fact as he was at the party, and Hermann surges forward and kisses him.

Newton’s lips are as soft as he imagined, as wonderful as he imagined, and Newton pushes him down against the sheets and climbs on top of him to kiss him over and over as Hermann never _dared_ imagine. “I thought you _knew_ ,” Newton pants, laughs, and it's like a dam has broken and Hermann clings to him and strokes every inch of Newton's skin he can reach. “I thought I was coming on too strong. I thought you were just too polite to tell me to _fuck off_.”

“Never,” Hermann says, as Newton kisses his neck, “I would _never_. Newton—if I had even the slightest _inkling_ —”

“We share a bed _._ I wrote a  _song_ for you,” Newton says, stopping and sitting up to stare at him incredulously, and Hermann pulls Newton back down into his arms and kisses him again.

* * *

“Your home is very nice,” Mako says kindly some two months later, as she and Tendo and Raleigh cram themselves in around Newton and Hermann’s tiny kitchen table and start pulling their hats and scarves off; Newton collects everything and tosses them in a little pile on the armchair along with their coats.

(“Should’ve gotten the table that seats six,” Newton _tsk_ ed to Hermann after they showed everyone in and were promptly showered in hugs and _how are you_ s and returned them in kind with _how was the flight_ s and—for Mako and Raleigh— _how was your vacation_ s. “Let’s just hope that one of them brought a sleeping bag, because I’m pretty sure Raleigh alone is the size of the sofa bed.”)

“I like the paint,” Raleigh offers. “It’s...pretty.” Mako makes a face at him. Raleigh shrugs.

“A for effort, man,” Newton snorts. “But thanks anyway. _Hermann_ didn’t want the blue at first, but I talked him into it eventually.” He shoots Hermann a _look_ , and Hermann returns it; Newton had been _quite_ convincing.

Tendo doesn’t miss the exchange. “Yeeeah,” he says, and looks pointedly down at Newton and Hermann’s matching—and very real—wedding bands. Mako and Raleigh quickly drop all pretenses of caring about what color Newton and Hermann used in the kitchen and look down at them too. Hermann wondered how long the elephant in the room would remain unaddressed; not long, evidently.

Newton grins. “Funny story, actually.”

**Author's Note:**

> god this was fun as hell to write
> 
> tumblr: hermannsthumb, twitter: hermanngaylieb!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Trials and Tribulations of One Hermann Gottlieb, PhD](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17253404) by [OnyxSphynx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphynx/pseuds/OnyxSphynx)




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